3rd January 2004

Let’s shift gears and talk politics a bit, mainly because, thanks to the news of Michael Howard‘s "I believe" statement, I have Robson & Jerome playing over and over in my head.

If anyone is taken in by these meaningless statements, just think back to the early 1990s and remember which political party privatised the railways, presided over the worst recession in recent history and enacted laws to ensure gay people were treated as second-class citizens.

Depsite a few vague statements to the contrary, I see no evidence that they’ve changed at all.

4th January 2004

WindowsXP is really starting to piss me off. I keep changing my display name in MSN Messenger, but next time I sign in, it’s changed back. And I have no idea why (if anyone has a theory, please do leave a note on the comments popup)

6th January 2004

Run out of trains to spot? Fear not, there’s still fun to be had on the railways with my handy cut-out-and-keep guide to Merseyrail passengers! Simply carry this with you on train journeys and tick each example off as you encounter it.

We are all of course familiar with the common BRAINLESS SCALLY and FEET-ON-SEAT MAN, so lets skip ahead to:

15th January 2004

A Japanese company has apparently invented a device that allows users to direct their own dreams. This is one of those reports where I wish there was something to it, but given that it’s the same company that invented that "dog translator" machine, probably not…

23rd January 2004

Interesting BBC article about a Silicon Valley veteran who has decided to disconnect himself permanently from the Internet after more than 20 years.

Buried in the text is the statistic that out of a population of 6.3 billion, only 600 million are connected to the Internet. There’s a lesson there for people (like me) who spend a lot of time online: if you rely on the Internet too heavily, you’re only experiencing 10% of the world.

UPDATE: I forget, is a billion equal to a thousand million or a million million?

25th January 2004

"It" is sex, in case you’re wondering. This is part of an absolutely genuine website promoting abstinence from "it" to American teens. I emphasise that it is genuine, because when you see the list, you’ll start to have doubts. As the title suggests, it’s a list of 100 things guaranteed to take your mind off sex. My personal faves:-

27th January 2004

BBC Radio 4 tells me, in one of those very Radio 4-ish moments, that the result of the tuition fees debate will be broadcast "after The Archers". With this and the Hutton Report tomorrow, it looks like politics could be interesting for the next 2 days or so. Savour this while it lasts; it doesn’t happen very often any more.

29th January 2004

What a waste of time the Hutton Inquiry was. For all the accusations, fierce rhetoric and bitter recriminations, do we really know more now than we did last year? Most people realised that that single BBC report was flawed. BBC management made the mistake of backing it without checking out the facts first. They should have corrected the report, no question.

But this single cockup must not blind us to the overall superiority of the BBC’s news operation as a whole. I love the BBC. It’s one of the few great British institutions that are left, and I hate the smug gloating of its enemies, most of whom have their own sinister agenda, whenever it puts a foot wrong. I’ll even forgive them for Fame Academy.

30th January 2004

Well, now that "Arctic Conditions" week is officially over, I can report on the blizzard situation in Liverpool. While everyone else was apparently buried under six feet of snow, total snowfall in the Capital of Culture consisted of a five minute flurry on Wednesday lunchtime.

And, as Sod’s law dictates, I was walking through town when it hit. :-)

Andrew Gilligan is gone and no doubt another round of schadenfreude will follow from the BBC’s enemies.

Anyway, some people at the BBC are determined not to go down without a fight. Big names including Jonathan Ross and John Simpson have given their support to an unprecedented newspaper campaign in which the corporation vows to carry on making challenging and provocative programmes.